What is social engineering and how does AI impact it?

7th March 2025

Social engineering is the process that cyber criminals use to manipulate you into giving away your secure data. They trick victims into thinking they are trustworthy, stealing your details for their own nefarious uses.

Artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to simplify this, making it easier for bad actors to target you with the following methods:

AI powered phishing attacks: AI can quickly and easily generate convincing emails, texts and messages that look legitimate, but actual serve to steal your personal details. This can go further with spear phishing, a more targeted version of general phishing that references the user individually.

Deepfakes: videos and audio clips – generated by AI – of well-known public figures can be used to manipulate people into transferring money or private data.

AI-powered chatbots: bad actors deploy chatbots on websites to impersonate customer support agents or advisors. They can mimic real conversations to lure personal information out of victims.

Voice phishing: by cloning human speech, AI can create audio clips of people saying things they haven’t said, that might be incriminating for blackmail purposes or that might request private details.

Social media manipulation: using AI, cyber criminals can make fake social media profiles to deceive people, spreading misinformation to gain access to personal information.

AI can clearly be used to make social engineering easier for malicious actors, simplifying the process to make it easier to access personal data.

How can you counter act this? It is important to ensure you know where messages are coming from – double check email addresses and numbers to ensure contact is coming from legitimate, trusted sources. Additionally, never trust people are who they claim to be online and never give away personal details through sources you IT team haven’t flagged as trustworthy.

For more advice, contact the Interfuture Security team HERE.